


Rituals

by newsbypostcard



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Background Character Death, Christmas, Epistolary, Family, Fluff, Grief/Mourning, Holidays, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Loss of Faith, M/M, OT4, Religion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-13
Updated: 2016-12-13
Packaged: 2018-09-08 06:30:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8834020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newsbypostcard/pseuds/newsbypostcard
Summary: "Mistletoe," Bucky muttered, brushing his lips against Steve's neck. "Can't be held responsible."In this corner of Bucky's bedroom, Christmas became theirs.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was pieced together in part from elements I expelled from other fics. It is internally consistent with several of my other works in this fandom, but this is very much standalone. 
> 
> "Why angst _and_ fluff?" WELL you see my own feelings on Christmas are complicated (read: I'm Natasha in this fic), so I tried to exorcise them. This fic is intended to convey a complicated picture of Christmas, but it ends on a crescendo, I hope.
> 
>  **Warning:** A background character commits suicide. It is centrally discussed in one short scene about halfway through the fic; the year mentioned is 1933. Skip the scene or avoid the fic as needed; it is not significantly mentioned again.
> 
>  **This work has been translated into German.** You can read it [here](http://www.fanfiktion.de/s/586bd03d000331f93725f3be/1/Rituale-Steve-x-Bucky-). (Thank you, Maron!!)

  


  


### 1937

Steve was crowded in the corner of Bucky's old bedroom, Bucky pressed against him, and for all it devoured him there was a softness to it, too. 

Snow drifted by the window, just outside.

"Mistletoe," Bucky muttered, brushing his lips against Steve's neck. "Can't be held responsible."

Steve tried his damndest to keep quiet; swallowed every breaking sound. "They'll find us," he said, but was left to hold at Bucky's neck; he keened, wanting, as Bucky lifted him near off his feet.

"Let them."

Christmas was the only time Bucky ever felt like the reckless one between them. There was something in the mistletoe, or in the brandy, or in the joy of above-grade food or the red of their cheeks -- but Christmas hadn't been feeling right for either one of them until now, until Bucky'd stood next to Steve under that damnable mistletoe and looked up at it, a drink in his hand, smirking as Steve had turned steadily red.

This was a rectifying measure, necessary and dangerous; a last ditch attempt to carve something out of Christmas for themselves. 

That the only two men in the house had gone suddenly missing was surely noticed by now, but still they sensed they had a few moments left for themselves. Bucky held fast to him, fingertips scraping across his ribs. 

"Sure," Steve said. "We'll blame the mistletoe."

Bucky's hands held then at Steve's wafer-thin waist and Bucky seemed to be brought to that passion again, some rare thing that seemed to rear its head only in moments like these. "Not a person in this damn city could fault us," Bucky muttered; and God help them, but Steve believed him.

Then Bucky kissed him deep, and Steve kissed him back; and just like that, after years of steeling themselves against it, in this corner of Bucky's bedroom, Christmas became theirs.

  


  


* * *

  


  


_Nov 13 1941_

Rogers,

Sorry for the delay. I got your letter dated September. I hope you're done trying to enlist by now because you know I hate that more than anything. 

I can't even talk to you sometimes for how much I hate that. It's ~~not great~~ fine ~~terrible~~ not what you want to do with your life so just quit it and work on getting well, would you? It's getting to be cold in NY and I won't be there to ~~warm you the hell up~~ browbeat you into putting logs in the stove and so I know you won't do it so you have to take it easy. You know how December gets with you and anyway I will kill you myself before I let you try to fight a literal Nazi with those fingers of yours. You know those dainty sticks are meant for art anyhow.

I'll be by in ten days or so for T-Day. Guess they gave that to me because they're not gonna give me Xmas now that I'm up for Sergeant but hey you always said Xmas is for the birds anyhow. Don't you even think about spending it alone just because I'm not there though, you're family alright? Go to Ma's or else, I'm sending her the money today and I fully expect you to take advantage of my hard-earned hospitality regardless of whether or not we're ~~together~~ talking that much ~~able to~~ in the same state. Eat twice as much while you're at it on account of my not needing a share. 

And you should know that if you don't I'll know about it. Rebecca will surely cry if you don't go and if you make my sister cry you know I'll spend my last damn breath wishing a pox upon your name, and you've already had most of those anyway so you know the last one's gotta be pretty bad. And so you have to go now, so don't argue, and stop trying to enlist while you're at it.

Anyway I guess T-Day will be plenty busy but I'll come by sometime and we'll catch up a bit.

Eat something for God's sake. 

Yr pal,  
    Cpl Barnes

P.S. Stop trying to enlist.

  


  


  


### 2012

They only invited him to be kind. Steve knows that. But -- maybe it's the time of year -- he seems to be having a hard time turning kindness down these days.

Christmas is… confusing. Shopping seems to be a prevailing theme. The giving of things, almost a competition -- or maybe it just looks like one at Stark's Christmas party. Natasha's basically serving as his handler in sticking by his side like glue; Steve knows that, too. But he enjoys her company, so in the end he doesn't mind all that much.

Despite the appalling display of gift-giving for an apparent sole purpose of upstaging the person who came before them, nobody, Steve notices, tries to give Natasha anything. There's a rumour going around that Bruce tried, but she glared at him so long in disbelieving silence that he got sheepish and walked away, gift still in hand. Steve's seen him skulking at the edges of whatever room Natasha happens to be in, like he's trying to find the right opportunity to try again, but he never quite seems to find one where he doesn't also fear for the integrity of his kneecaps.

"You gonna cut the man some slack?" Steve mutters, when he looks up unexpectedly as they enter.

"Nope," she says primly. 

Steve has the impression this might the one Christmas tradition she actually enjoys -- the flagrant avoiding of same. It borders on aspirational, if Steve's being honest.

Everyone in the Avengers seems to be atheist, from what Steve can tell. He's not sure how to deal with that. _He_ might be an atheist, now; he's not sure how to deal with that either. The longer he ruminates on the fact of Schmidt and war and sacrifice -- on how the sanctity of life and liberty clearly mean nothing outside of concept -- the more tempting it is to resign himself from faith in anything and simply try to survive to the next day.

Steve's been alive again for about eight months, since around about Easter. Maybe it's the proximity to Christmas, but the whole thing feels insanely perverse.

"This feels insanely perverse," Steve mutters, before he knows he's done it.

"Tell me about it," Natasha says, switching out his empty glass for a full one. "Can you believe people like this time of year?"

Steve gives her a wan smile. "Am I that obvious?"

"I'm not calling you an open book, but I wouldn't exactly call you a mystery, Captain."

"Just because you're tailing me doesn't mean you have to call me Captain."

"Who's tailing you?"

Steve merely tips the glass she gave him in her direction and drains the contents in one. "No hard feelings," he says, trying to wrap his lips around the peculiar taste of eggnog. "I know Fury's behind it."

"Fury's not the boss of me," she says, tone ironic.

"Isn't he literally your boss?"

"Right, but apart from that." Steve gives her the empty glass when she holds out her hand for it, and she exchanges it for a new one; he drains it in one. 

"You gonna keep downing what I give you?"

"Yup," Steve says, taking the next.

"That has potential."

"Figure it's worth a shot." Maybe the alcohol is doing something after all, because he actually makes a solemn, solitary fingergun. "Something's gotta turn this party for me."

"That's the spirit."

He downs that glass, too, then shakes his head with a grimace when she offers him another one. "No, I can't. Guess eggnog builds over time."

She smiles at him, apparently fond. If Steve achieves nothing else at this party, at least he's providing Natasha with some free entertainment. 

"I'm not sure I've ever seen one person drink so much eggnog before," she says.

"Figured now's the time to try new things."

"When you're endlessly surrounded by them?"

"Deep end, and all that."

"Aw, don't sound so enthused."

Steve sighs. "No, I'm glad to be here. Being by myself's a double-edged sword these days. I don't mean to sound ungrateful."

"I don't think there's anyone who could accuse you of that."

Steve gives a quiet smile and shoves his hands in his pockets as they stroll through the spectacle that Stark's entertaining floor has become.

"Guess Christmas was pretty different in the '40s," Natasha asks him.

"Didn't experience too many of those. War eclipsed any pretense at celebration."

"Right."

"The '30s weren't much to write home about either. The '20s were okay. Well…" He grimaces. "I dunno. Dad died in '24 and I was sick all the time as it was, so we kinda just did the best we could. I liked staying up late as a kid, though, the years I could make it to Mass."

"So it was mostly religious for you."

"God and family: the cornerstones of America." He gives a wavering, ironic smile. "Less and less God as the years went on, for… all kinds of reasons, I guess. Looks like He had an eye on me all along anyway though."

Natasha hums at him. "You sound like you're not so sure if that's a good thing."

Steve only sighs and stares straight ahead, shrugging a solitary shoulder.

"Right," Natasha says, pursing her lips. "Well, you'll figure it out. I'm not religious myself, but I hear the celestial authorities are pretty lenient when it comes to things like dying and being revived."

He smiles, helplessly amused. "Thanks." He looks at her sidelong. "What about you?"

"Uh uh," she says, shaking her head. "Nice try."

" _Try_? Am I trying something?"

"Not getting information out of me that easy."

Steve gives a burst of a laugh. "It's a conversation, not an interrogation."

"Says you."

"Well, that hardly seems fair."

"When has life ever been fair?" Natasha puts a hand on his arm. "Hey." 

They pull to a halt; Natasha looks at him, smiling mischievously. Steve leans down when she beckons, but he still doesn't expect a chaste kiss in the corner of his mouth.

"Uh." Steve stands up straight, lit by surprise.

"Oh," says Natasha. She frowns. "Sorry."

"No," Steve says. "I'm sorry. I, uh…" He laughs, nerves fluttering suddenly in his gut. "What was that for?"

She points to the ceiling, and Steve looks up to see mistletoe hanging above them.

His stomach drops to the floor. He cuts his face away; presses fingers to his open mouth, as though to keep something in.

"Whoa." This time, the hand on his arm is steadying. "Hey, sorry. That eggnog catching up with you?"

"No," Steve mutters, then swallows hard and turns, blinking, to face yet further away. "Sorry. It's, um… listen, I think I'd better go."

Natasha's brow wrinkles. "Surely not because I kissed you."

"No," he says, placing a hand at her shoulder. "It's nothing to do with you, you've been great, it's just -- the time of year. I'm sorry, Romanov. I thought I could do this, but I was wrong." 

He forces a thin smile and steps away in search of his coat, but he is not surprised when Natasha starts after him. 

"Hey, come on." Her hand pulls at his elbow, dragging him back. "Why don't you stay another hour? See how it goes. It'll get better, I promise."

"No," he says, and realizes he doesn't need a coat anyway. "I, uh -- it's really for the best. But thank you," he says, voice deepening with sincerity, "for making the effort. I can't tell you how--"

When his voice fails him, it at least proves to Natasha that it's time for him to go.

"Okay," she says, bewildered and sympathetic. "Promise me you'll at least try to have a relaxing night, okay? You deserve a break. I mean it."

"Yeah," Steve says and backs slowly away, hands clenched into fists as though he's already taped them up. "Yeah, Natasha. You too."

  


  


  


### 1936

They just invited him to be kind. Steve knew that. So he declined the invitation, not wanting to infect anyone with the mourning he carried on his shoulders as though part of him.

"You're not _infecting_ anyone," Bucky wailed.

"Thanks, Buck," Steve said, and waved him away.

"Quit being a martyr, would you? It's Christmas Eve, and I hear Jesus doesn't like being upstaged."

"Hilarious."

"Just come over for _dinner._ You don't have to stay for drinks or do gifts or--"

"You know I can't afford gifts," Steve muttered. He continued washing the dishes and pretended the shake in his hands was from the temperature of the water.

"No one's asking you to. Everyone knows you're still paying off your Ma's burial costs, whether you like it or not. Come be around people for reasons of joy and merriment for once in your life, would you? Get a decent meal in you. You're too damn thin."

"How many times do I have to say no before you'll take me seriously? I can take care of myself."

"I'm saying," Bucky said, with just a hint of edge in his voice, "you don't _have to_. Come over. Be warm. Let someone else take care of things for just a _day._ "

"No thanks, Buck."

A silence fell. Steve looked over to where Bucky was standing tall, coat donned, pulling on gloves, staring at Steve in a rare moment absent any bluster at all.

"Steve," Bucky said. Something in the tone of it, achingly sincere, brought Steve's shoulders to drop. "I'm not gonna have a good time knowing you're kicking around here all by yourself."

Steve allowed the plate he'd been holding to drift back through the water, to the bottom of the basin. He was always captured, enraptured, on the rare occasion Bucky let down his guard like this. 

"That's not my problem, Buck," Steve said quietly.

"You have another option."

"You're--" That stubborn emotion balled in Steve's chest, the one that countered his grief in a way he hadn't understood. Yet now it combined with it, rolled into one; left him blinking against heat in his eyes for more reasons than he could identify.

Steve clenched his hand into a fist and cleared his throat. "You're misunderstanding what Christmas is to me," he managed.

Bucky opened his mouth, then closed it again. He kept tugging at his gloves, though Steve was sure they were on by then. "So explain it to me."

Steve hated the gentility of it. He waved a hand and turned away. "Explain it to yourself. I'm busy."

"Don't do that. Not now."

Steve sighed and braced himself against the table. "Look. It's just been me and Ma for as long as I can remember. She picks up something nice to eat for once, and we make it together, and then we eat it in candlelight, and then we go carolling with Aunt Winn. Then we go to Mass, and in the morning we make rolls and visit Dad and build a snowman in the corner of the graveyard that isn't used, and it's not much but it's _ours_ , and is what it is, Bucky, alright? Only it's _not_ anymore because she's _gone_ , so I wish you'd just let me--"

His voice died on him. He hung his head but he could tell Bucky was still staring; Steve could hear his breathing from across the room.

"This is why I don't want you to be alone, Steve." There was a waver in his voice, too, God help them both. 

"Nobody does," Steve said. "But nobody cares what _I_ want. Yours isn't the only invitation I've passed up."

"But you don't want to be alone, either. You -- you want your mom."

"Yeah," Steve said. "And I'm gonna spend it with her, since you can't let a damn thing drop. I asked Aunt Winn if she'd give me a stick of butter for Christmas and I'm gonna make Ma's stupid rolls and take them to her and Dad like always. I don't know why you won't let me _have this._ "

Bucky looked devastated, for some reason Steve couldn't discern. "You don't have to _ask for butter for Christmas,_ Steve, _Jesus._ Use ours."

"Don't--"

Steve cut off. Bucky blinked at him. "What, take His name?"

"Not on Christmas Eve," Steve muttered. "I'm not gonna use the butter you paid for on my dumb Christmas tradition."

" _Steve,_ " Bucky said, and walked over to him. "My butter is your goddamn butter, and don't scold me for cursing, you've met me before. Use the butter."

"Butter's expensive."

"Costs less than your fucking suffering." 

It shocked him enough to nearly bring him to laugh. He flicked his wet hand in Bucky's face in retaliation.

Bucky opened his mouth to object, but seemed to think better of it when he saw Steve smirking despite himself. He shook his head and ran a hand over his face, at once furious and compassionate. 

"I didn't know you had plans," he ground out.

"Did you ask?"

"Only daily for weeks, jackass." Bucky clapped him upside the head. "You don't have to deflect so much with me."

"Come on, Buck, you know better. All we do is deflect."

It was too honest, all of a sudden, teasing at something they both seemed to live with and yet neither knew how to manage. That was the problem with getting honest with each other; once they got going, Steve only ever wound up with more questions.

They both turned away from the baldness of it, as though still balancing too precarious to raw emotion to trust themselves with more. "Anyway," Steve said, cutting through the tension best he knew how. "You better go or you'll be late."

"Come with me," Bucky said again, still serious, and turned him around, hands tensed at his shoulders. "Just come to dinner. Come to Mass with us tonight. Come to _something_ , Steve, for _God's sake._ Tomorrow I'll leave you to do what you want, but…" Bucky sighed and looked suddenly overwhelmed; battled down that rare passion, that Steve so rarely saw. "Don't make this so damn _hard_. You always make things so goddamn hard on yourself. Just come by and get something to eat, _please,_ Rogers, as your gift to me. Just come by and get warm for an hour."

Steve looked at him and felt at odds, with grief and something else sparking so close within him. "I don't… think I'll be very good company, Buck."

"No one cares," Bucky said. "You think any of us is the same since Dad passed? There's a black fucking veil over Christmas for all of us, Steve. We're all in mourning, so mourn in fucking company." Bucky's hand set against Steve's neck, _far_ too affectionate, and Steve shut his eyes and breathed, trying to keep blood from rushing to his cheeks. 

"No one expects a damn thing of you except to be what you are," Bucky said. "I wish you'd get that right."

Steve felt unable to open his eyes, sure he'd be facing his undoing. "Okay," he muttered, before he realized he was saying it, just to get Bucky to lay off. "One hour, Buck, but beyond that no guarantees."

Bucky's relief led him to pull Steve into a hug, tight and stupid, with a fist pressing hard at his back; and Steve leaned into it a little harder than usual before hitting Bucky in the shoulder as hard as he could and stumbling off to get his coat amid Bucky's incredulity.

In the end, he wound up staying at the Barnes' the whole evening; found comfort in the round silences carved out by the quiet grief that lived in them all. He accepted the brandy Bucky had sprung for on account of the holiday and sat with them at Midnight Mass; and then he went back the year after that, and the year after that, and the year after that as well, just because Bucky had insisted so hard that he shouldn't be alone.

  


  


* * *

  


  


_December 13, 1942_

Bucky,

I know you're still mad at me for taking this job with the USO but I'm writing you again anyway. Rip this up if you want but I guess I've been thinking of you and wondering how you are and all that.

How's redacted? I've heard redacted is nice this time of year. Har, har. Well hopefully you're somewhere warm. Though the cold never bothered you as much as it ~~used to~~ bothers me so never mind I guess.

This time of year I guess there's a lot of demand for the services we provide. It's nice to be busy but maybe I could do without the reminders of Xmas everywhere all the time. France is a Catholic country so I guess I'll still make it to Mass, thought you'd be glad of that. I'll be pretty far from Ma though and you of course so I'm not so sure how I'm feeling besides that. I'll be working all day and all night so that's a relief. Guess I'll have a distraction anyway.

You never did answer me how you spent last year I'm just remembering. I hope the Army does something nice for you even all the way over in redacted. Just checking my own surroundings I'm guessing maybe not but you know the way resources are. You probably more than me. We're having a nice meal on Xmas Eve but I'm not sure if I'm gonna go. Maybe I will. It won't be the same without

Anyway I guess I hope you take heart knowing I'm thinking of you whether you're thinking of me or not.

You can write me at Steve Rogers c/o USO Touring Company, France, if so inclined. I understand if you don't but well, I wouldn't mind hearing from you regardless, Buck, but it's up to you.

Anyway take care of yourself. And I hope you have a Very Merry Christmas wherever you are.

Sincerely,  
    Jackass

  


  


  


### 2014

Natasha finds him looking out the window, just as Steve's deciding to leave.

"You okay?" she asks, but he hears: _You know he's not there._

Steve thinks about lying, but in the end it's too much work. "Thought I saw him the other day," he says, muttering into his drink. "Flash of long hair, baseball cap. Seemed to glimpse me and then disappear into a shop. Didn't see him when I went in."

Natasha doesn't say anything for a while, until -- "You think it was really him?"

He looks at her, searching. They don't talk about the fact that she's still handling him these days, even in the wake of S.H.I.EL.D.'s collapse. They don't talk about how she and Sam both carry weapons galore when they hang around with him now. They don't talk about how Rhodey is suddenly his new best friend; how there's rarely a time Steve leaves the house anymore when one of them isn't with him, or how Tony is seeming a lot more generous when it comes to sharing tech lately. 

Steve chooses to believe they're doing it because they care about him, but it also helps the situation that he knows without a doubt he could disarm any one of them in the event Bucky ever did show up.

He's also starting to learn their tells as time goes on.

"Guess not," he says, and sips his drink.

Natasha's gaze drops, and for a second, so too the illusion. "Testing me now, huh?"

"Now why would I do a thing like that?"

From the tension that follows Steve has the sense he's brushed up against a nerve. He could be a lot meaner, he knows, and Natasha still wouldn't leave his side -- not here; not today. 

For a second, it's tempting. Sometimes it feels like years since he's given himself the satisfaction of being properly petty.

"You done?" she asks then, and just like that Steve's bravado falls away.

"Sorry," he sighs. He looks at the glass in his hand. "Time of year. I know it's not an excuse, but…" He shakes his head. "People seriously have to stop inviting me to these things."

Natasha nods, leaning against the windowframe beside him. "Your dad died in '24, right?"

Steve nods. "Yeah."

"And your mom?"

"'36. TB."

"Siblings?"

"Not me. Ma had a sister -- spinster, didn't have much. Dad's brothers fell out of touch after the economic downturn. Everyone thought I was gonna die young, and Ma had steady work, so they didn't…" Steve shakes his head again. "Christmas was mostly Ma and me, until it wasn't."

"So... you spent the holidays with Barnes, after she died. I assume."

Steve nods, slow, despondent. "Once upon a time he'd have all but sold his soul to drag me off so I wouldn't be alone." He gives a deep, wracking sigh. "It was one thing to remember that when I thought he was dead, but now..."

Natasha doesn't say anything for a long time, but eventually sets a comforting hand at his back.

"That makes sense," she says, quiet. "You're not alone, though, Steve."

Steve lets his head hang; accepts the comfort, even if it upsets him to do it. "Not the same," he mutters.

"Why don't you come downstairs? Pool table looks free, and Tony looks like he could use a proper thrashing. Get your mind on something else."

"Think I'd rather wallow," he says, and gives a thin smile as he puts his glass on the nearest table and shuffles off toward the coat check.

"Oh, come on, Steve, don't do this. Not again."

"Have a nice time, Nat," Steve says, and turns away, knowing she'll be forced to follow in a matter of minutes anyway. 

On the cold walk to the train, it doesn't take long before Steve registers a shadow out of the corner of his eye; some disturbance in the night. He stops dead; his heart pounds, eyes tempted to the side. He stands there, steadfast, unmoving, and tries to convince himself that it's just Sam or Natasha or Rhodes looking out for him.

Seconds turn to minutes. Steve does not turn around.

After a long, long time, Steve starts walking again, facing straight ahead against the bitter force of the driving wind; and if only by the march of the mantra in his head, he manages to get all the way to the train before casting one last look around, praying that his instincts might be right after all.

He sees nothing.

He goes home.

  


  


  


### 1939

"You taste like whiskey," Steve muttered, desperate for a distraction.

Bucky still wouldn't take his hand off his cock. "You taste like mulled wine," he said against Steve's lips, holding him in place. He kept stroking him off like they had nowhere to be. " _Jesus_ , Rogers, you gotta be _quiet_ , you wanna get found?"

"Ah," Steve said, automatic, his hips canting, cheeks hot. "Ah, ah, ah, _ah_ \--"

Bucky responded by kissing him as deep as he could, swallowing every sound he made; giving Steve all of that ruinous taste, holding to him as though the dearest thing.

"Oh," Steve said when Bucky set his hot mouth at his throat instead, "Bucky, your mother will be here in _seconds_ ," but then he gasped with all Bucky was making him feel and Bucky made the kind of guttural sound in his throat that Steve would remember for years. Bucky mouthed at Steve's skin, Steve's cheeks still aflame with alcohol and effort; and Steve gripped at Bucky's hair in furious control, trying frantically to find silence at the same time as he made it impossible for Bucky to leave. 

Steve was instead left helpless instead by the way Bucky's fingers wrapped at his thigh and pumped at his cock, slick and hot and driving Steve out of his mind. Bucky dropped to his knees not long later and wrapped his lips around him, wet, encompassing, and he hollowed out his cheeks with such intention that Steve came stuttering and swearing in seconds. 

He'd pressed so hard into Bucky's shoulder he'd been _sure_ it had hurt, but he hadn't cried out; his throat balled with effort. Bucky's fingers clung to his hips as his lips dragged up and off him, licking them off as he went to pull the salt of him back onto his tongue. 

Steve carded a hand through his hair, lost to endorphins or affection. Bucky pressed his cheek at Steve's hip, looking up at him with such innocence that Steve wondered, a bit delirious, if he'd even known about the things he'd just done.

"Hi," Bucky said, fingers wrapping at his thighs.

"Hi," Steve replied, and it was all so -- _open_. He was too drunk and warm and full with food to hide his blush or his smile or the way he felt, but not so drunk not to give Bucky shit for choosing his moment. "You gonna get to your feet and clean this up or what?"

"Nah."

"Godless heathen."

"Don't wanna."

"Okay," Steve said, and in the end he was happy enough with that too. "Sorry, Mrs. Barnes, can't go to Mass. Tell Jesus sorry about the yuletide erections."

Bucky smiled and shut his eyes, and wrapped his fingers around Steve's legs tight enough to make Steve think he needed to. Steve brushed the hair at Bucky's temple again and again with wanton fingers, and all this was certainly an indulgence, but then Christmas Eve always was.

Here they were, tucked away in Bucky's bedroom, sitting here where they might be found as though they couldn't be, booze thick on their breaths. Steve breathed it all in; made a point of remembering every detail, right down to the cold that threatened snow outside. 

"Buck," he said, quiet.

Bucky pried his eyes open. "Yeah, Rogers," he said, matching his tone.

"I just--" Steve laughed, suddenly nervous and elated. "Merry Christmas," he got out, before his throat grew thick; and he looked to the ceiling and swallowed and said, "you _colossal_ jackass, now get to your feet."

Bucky opened his eyes and smiled at him, blinking slow, oddly at peace; and as he staggered up he took Steve in and kissed him open, hot and messy all over again.

"Merry Christmas, Steve," he muttered into his mouth; and if they were still making out when Bucky's mother knocked on the door, it was worth it to hurry for the extra moments that stayed their own.

  


  


  


### 2013

Steve scans his fingers over the indents on his mother's headstone and tries not to count the years since he's been. 

"I brought some rolls," Steve says aloud, and then finds himself at a loss.

He's been too distracted mourning more recent losses to always remember how far his grief extends. It's -- strange, to be here, after all this time. In a way it's one of those things that hasn't changed at all; the graveyard's been inexplicably preserved, accommodated in the course of construction and gentrification. 

It's as though the sanctity of death still matters to some. Steve is almost astonished to learn it.

He isn't sure how well he feels to be here. He isn't sure if he should've come. He knows Bucky is 'buried' here, too -- as well as anyone can be buried in Brooklyn when his body's been lost to a gully in Switzerland.

For all he's managed to adjust to in the last 18 months, Steve's not sure if he can…

It's Christmas Eve, and he's decided to come _here_ \-- he's decided to come here _today,_ of all days -- but he's not sure if he should have come at all.

In the '30s Steve would come by here whenever he wished he could talk to her, to his mother, to hear her voice of reason in his mind. He did this as though the stone slab and patch of earth that represented her was a suitable substitute. He always recapped her on his life's goings-on; on what Bucky was doing, on what work they had found; or on the things he never told anyone else about -- the ways he felt when it came to Bucky, or to the war, or when it came to fear and doubt and trying his damndest to persevere through it. 

Now his world is gone; now he's been left with this one, risen from the ashes of what he used to know.

The graveyard seems just the same and so is Sarah Rogers, but he finds he has nothing to say to her. He wouldn't know where to start.

Steve opens his mouth, then closes it again. He runs his fingers over the headstone again, a sad smile hinting at his lips. "Well," he mutters, "maybe you know it all already anyway."

He sits for a while longer in the mild December air, hoping Ma knows what he _would_ say, if he had it in him to find the words. Then he gets up and looks for the Barneses.

He hangs back when he finds them -- when he sees Bucky's name, writ large on a slab way too goddamn big and well-kept to have been more than a few years old. Steve's heart starts hammering in his chest when he realizes they probably replaced it when they got word of his own revival. George's grave is marked with his name, as are Rebecca's and Sally's, but Winifred's is not; time has not been kind to them all, and Steve's heart breaks to think that he hasn't been here once. More than eighteen months and he's never been here to see how a woman who took him in so many times has been memorialized. 

He makes a note to invest in a proper headstone for her, if not one the size that Bucky's earned.

Amazing what a hero's title will get you.

Steve finds the courage to step forward -- gets Bucky's name under his fingers before he rests his palm wide against the cold, dry stone.

"Hi," he says, though he knows Bucky isn't here.

Bucky could be anywhere.

Bucky died seventy years ago.

Steve, tired of himself, sits down and pours some mulled wine from a thermos. If there had been something missing from visiting his mom, this, he finds, makes a lot more sense. He runs his fingertips over the cross that marks Winifred's resting place and imagines myriad voices; thinks of the voices of the girls, and of Winifred scolding them to contain themselves now that the boys are home. 

"Thanks for having me, Mrs. Barnes."

Suddenly he's so bursting with words to say that he doesn't know where to start.

He drinks a capful of wine and then pours himself another one, ignoring the shake of his hands despite the 40 degree weather. "I'm sorry I wasn't around," Steve says, when he gets a grip. "Bucky told me to take care of you when he went off to war and I didn't do that at all. There were extenuating circumstances. I'm fairly sure he was actually saying that I was meant to go to your house so _you_ could take care of _me_ , for example, so hopefully you'll forgive me for not inflicting myself on you." Steve leans back against Bucky's headstone and unfurls his feet in front of him, sighing as though leaning against Bucky himself. "I was also in love with your son and I was certain he'd come to hate me in the course of his training, somehow, so I had to…" He gives a big, gulping sigh. "It was nothing personal, Mrs. Barnes. You should know I was always grateful for all you--"

The ball in his throat doesn't go away even when he sips at his wine, so he just sits there in silence again, watching the sun slip lower and lower toward the trees.

"Wish you were here, Buck," he mutters, and toasts the sky. "This kind of winter sun always gave your pasty face something interesting to it for once. Guess you've heard that enough from me, though, since you died just to get away."

Some gentle breeze plays at his hair, and Steve shuts his eyes against it as if it was Bucky himself running his fingers through it.

"I still don't like winter much," he says, smiling something awful. "Can't really believe it took you instead of me, given what we always thought, but I guess…"

Weight balls in his throat again, prohibitive and stubborn, so Steve sits with it until his ears go numb.

  


  


  


### 1933

Steve finally found Bucky sitting on a roof by the water, feet dangling off its edge.

Steve shuffled down and sat there beside him. He was crying; they both were. He ran the flat of his hand over his cheeks again and again and inhaled hard through tired lungs. 

He'd looked for Bucky a long time, ears long since gone numb.

It was ten minutes before either one of them said anything.

"I found him," Bucky said at last.

Fresh tears fell from Steve's eyes. He wiped them away; tried to breathe through the hitch in his lungs. "I'm sorry."

Bucky looked at the sky like he expected an answer. Steve wanted to wrench his face away from this forsaking God; to take him far away from here.

"Why would he do this?" Bucky asked.

Steve didn't know if he was asking about his father or about God, but the answer was the same. "I don't know."

"He -- he was--"

"Bucky."

"He said it would be _easier_ ," Bucky said, "this way. _Easier._ "

Steve's chest stilled. His heart pounded; he felt dizzy. 

"Christmas got to him." Bucky looked at his clenching hands. "New Deal didn't count for shit so far as he could tell. Couldn't deal with not being able to provide what he used to, so he hung himself over the bedroom door."

" _Bucky._ "

"He said--"

"Wait… he _said_? What do you mean, he--"

"The note pinned to his chest said." Bucky gestured. "Same diff."

The ground felt to open beneath them. "Oh, _Bucky… no._ "

Bucky unfolded some paper from his pocket. "I wasn't supposed to be home but I said I was going to Church and I circled back instead. I was trying to see if Rebecca got the dress she wanted or if I had to pick up some hours or--"

Steve snatched the paper out of his hands and stuffed it hastily into his own coat, out of Bucky's reach. He didn't know why he did it, except that he felt overwhelmingly that it was right.

For the first time, Bucky looked right at him -- pale; haunted. Steve stared back, even as his heart pounded hard.

"Give it back," Bucky said -- hoarse; nearly a whisper.

"No," said Steve.

"Give it," Bucky told him, "back."

"It's not good for you, Bucky."

"Steve. Don't you keep this from me."

"It should have been kept from you in the first place. You shouldn't goddamn have this, Bucky."

"But I do."

"Well, that's wrong. Someone has to right the scales. Forget you ever saw it. It doesn't exist so far as you're concerned."

"It doesn't work like that."

"It does now. If God's not doing His job, let me."

Bucky's eyebrows peaked high. "You're playing at God now?"

"If I was this wouldn't have happened."

"You're so," Bucky said, but then only shook his head. "Watch yourself, alright? Mister Providence isn't gonna stay mad at God for long, so you don't want to say something you'll regret."

"Fuck God," Steve said, voice cracking. "Fuck Him."

Bucky's grief retreated as he searched Steve's eyes. "Hell, Rogers."

"This shouldn't have happened, Bucky. It shouldn't have happened."

And Steve didn't know why he did it, but Bucky reached out and wrapped his hand around Steve's wrist -- something steadying, awful in its sympathy, and it was the first time he'd ever done anything like it. It lit Steve afire, made him feel all at once like _he_ was wrong; Bucky shouldn't have offered him anything, damn it, Steve was the one meant to steady _him._

"This ain't about you, Rogers," Bucky told him, soft. "Give me back the note."

It was all so terrible, _too_ terrible; tears fell hot from Steve's eyes. He was right, he usually was, and Steve hated himself for not being stronger. So long spent convincing himself that every hardship was delivered on him for a reason. So long spent stubbornly believing, through years of mounting destitution, that God had a plan, only for all that belief to fall away just because--

He turned away, curled up with his shame, but he shoved the crumpled remains of his father's suicide note back into Bucky's hands. "Don't keep it," Steve told him, wiping furiously at his cheeks. "I swear it, Bucky, it's not meant for you. It's not meant for _you_."

"It's not meant for anyone, Rogers."

They were quiet, a while. 

"I'll have to drop out."

Steve nodded. "I figured you might."

"I almost finished."

"A lot of places will take that serious, Buck. With the New Deal, there's lots of… despite what your Dad thought. You'll be okay."

Steve turned his head to see Bucky nodding, then -- with flourish -- he tore the note to methodical shreds and set them loose on the wind.

"Never showed anyone that." Bucky looked up at Steve with devastated clarity, and Steve felt something spark in his gut -- hot, furious, unknowable. "I'll do better than he could. He was right."

"He was not right," Steve growled, "he couldn't be" -- and he took Bucky by the collar with a hand meant to comfort, only his anger was too big for him. It spilled out like smoke from a window. Bucky's face collapsed under the weight of uncertainty. 

Steve's heart fell with it, and from there it was instinct; he pulled Bucky down with an elbow at his neck and let Bucky grip at him with two bunching hands, hard and furious, while he sobbed right into the core of him.

Yet some way or another, in the week before Christmas, Bucky still managed to get Rebecca the dress that she wanted.

  


  


  


### 2015

"You know," Sam says, coming up behind him, "I don't think he knows where Nan lives."

Steve blinks up, embarrassed to have been caught. "Oh," he says. "No, yeah, I know. I know that." He looks at his feet. "Sorry."

"Don't be sorry."

"I--" He gestures further inside the house. "It's poor form, you shouldn't have to come get me. I know that."

"It is poor form, but you don't have to be sorry. Carols aren't your thing. I get it."

"In my defense," Steve says, "you were busy."

"Busy _leading the carols,_ " Sam says. "Nice try, though."

"Well, I wasn't gonna just stand there and sing."

Sam seems to find this inexplicably funny. "Why not?"

"Because I don't sing?"

"So you'll let me serenade you, but you won't do the same for me?" Sam nods. "I see how it is."

"You weren't _serenading me_."

"Is it my fault there were fifteen other people in the room?"

Steve steeples his eyebrows. "Well, it wasn't mine."

Sam smiles, warmer than Steve deserves, and looks out the window as though to find what Steve was staring at.

"It was beautiful, Sam," Steve says, trying to re-establish sincerity. "Really."

"I know it was. Nice of you to notice."

"You play every year?"

"I usually prepare different songs, but yeah."

"And you never use sheet music?"

"Enough training under these fingers not to need it," he says, waving them in the air.

"That's amazing."

"Thank you," Sam says, but it's clear he is not fucking buying it.

Steve wrenches himself away and leans his arm against the window frame. "Sorry," he mutters again, pinching his eyes shut.

"You don't have to be sorry," Sam repeats, emphatic. "You warned me about this when I invited you, and I'll tell you now what I told you then: you don't owe anybody anything. Be however you want." Sam nudges Steve's shoulder with his own. "Seems hard on you, though."

"Why are people suddenly so nice to me around Christmas?" Steve mutters, genuinely annoyed. "Everyone insists on 'accepting my grief.'"

"Sorry, man. I think that's part and parcel with the 'Christmas spirit'."

"Well, fuck the Christmas spirit."

"Whoa," Sam says, and has the audacity to look amused. "Okay then. Fuck it, man, I'm with you. Only don't swear like that in my Nan's house again."

"Sorry," Steve says, then considers apologizing for apologizing.

"You need someone to hit you every time you say that? Because I will definitely fill that vacancy."

"That's alright, but thanks for your generosity."

"Okay. Suit yourself." Sam seems to examine him. "So are you in need of a reality check?"

"No," Steve says at once. "Contrary to popular belief, I know the reality of the situation."

"So you know that Barnes isn't there."

"Yeah, Sam, I know he's not there."

"Do you _really_ , though? Because it seems like you're ignoring the good people who want to get to know you in favour of looking for him anyway."

"Understanding the reality of the situation and dousing stubborn hope are two different things."

"Hope, huh?"

"Your family is very nice," Steve says, trying for placating.

"Very nice! They've been clamping at the bit to meet you since I first brought you up, and now that you're here, they've been bending over backwards to make your old white ass feel welcome."

"Your Nan thinks we're an item," Steve says. "You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?"

"Nan has a lot of opinions," Sam says flatly. "Brought Riley home _one time_ and now she thinks every white boy I bring home is my new boyfriend."

"Assumption wouldn't be that remiss."

Sam frowns at him. "What's this going on now? You trying to get your rocks off because you're depressed at Christmas? I've been drinking, so answer carefully, here, because I may well be up for anything."

"I'm just saying," Steve says, smiling wryly, "that you brought me _home_ , Sam. For _Christmas._ "

"Sure, but _you_ accepted."

"Because you wouldn't let it go!"

"This is cute," says Sam's older sister, gesturing between them as she passes with a plate full of cookies. "You two are great together."

"Get out of here, Sarah, I swear to God," Sam grinds out, pushing her bodily away.

" _That_ was cute," Steve says, pointing at Sarah as she waves behind her and disappears with a laugh.

"You're just mocking me because my whole family's trying to set you up with me."

"Can you blame me?"

"You know, I thought you'd be a help to me." Sam leans against the windowframe beside him. "Now I see that under that chiseled jaw you're just a menace like the rest of them."

"Chiseled jaw, huh?"

Sam winces. "I'm not helping myself much here, am I?"

"Ah, I'm just messing with you."

He gives a pinched smile. "That's what family does, I guess."

For all it seems a strange thing to say, it doesn't feel that strange at all. They stare out into the night as a dozen cheerful voices chatter behind them, punctuated now and then with joyed shouting and helpless laughter.

"Green Christmas, I guess," Sam says.

"Yeah. Third in a row. Less of those back in the day than there seem to be now."

"Never feels the same to me when there's no snow, you know?"

"Yeah," Steve says, nodding. "I know what you mean."

Sam must pick up on his tone, because he's looking at him again. "You're thinking of bailing, aren't you?"

"Thinking about it," Steve admits.

"Well, stop it. Come get another drink already."

Steve gives a sad smirk. "I lasted longer than even I expected. Your lovely family has convinced me to stay long enough."

"Flattery's not getting you anywhere, asshole."

Steve's smile, at least, is genuine. "Dinner's over. I assumed it would be fine to just--"

"Nuh-uh. You're in the Wilson-Reyboult household now. You're used to being in charge, I get that, but your rules don't apply here. You gotta get way too drunk, make an ass of yourself at least once, and then spend the morning making breakfast and apologizing about how you got too drunk the night before."

"I can't get drunk."

Sam's face falls with remembrance. "Well then you _really_ owe us breakfast, because we're all gonna be hating your perfect ass tomorrow."

Steve smiles, but Sam's already mouthing profanities at the ceiling, so Steve decides to give him a break on the 'perfect ass' remark. "I don't think so, Sam."

"Oh, come on. What are you doing tomorrow? Running sadness errands?"

"Sam."

"I'm staying," Sam says, gesturing down the hall. "Just bunk with me. Problem solved."

Steve's eyebrows raise. "Yeah. _That_ won't encourage the rumours about our forthcoming engagement."

"You're getting engaged to Captain America?!" shouts someone from the kitchen.

"No Eileen," Sam shouts over his shoulder. "It was a joke."

"Didn't sound like a joke!" she calls back, to smattering laughter.

"Okay," Sam says to Steve. "It's possible I overestimated their investment in this little fantasy, but fuck 'em. Who cares what they think?"

"You do," Steve says, eyebrows high. "You clearly care for these people a great deal. It seems like deceiving them isn't something you want to spend your Christmas doing."

"Okay, well let's get one thing right: they are doing this to themselves. I have never once maintained that we're romantically involved or that you're in love with any damn body."

Steve shakes his head. "This still doesn't feel right."

"Now are you saying that because you mean it, or because you want to go home? Because since you're on your pedestal about honesty at Christmas…"

Steve looks askance and sighs his frustration. "You're not gonna let me get away with anything, are you?"

"Look -- after tonight they stop being your problem, but you still gotta deal with me, so stay the night since I'm telling you to and let me run damage control on the rest. Be in good company on Christmas for a change instead of spending the two tragic hours getting back to DC necessary just to mope around your apartment alone." Sam shrugs. "What have you got to lose?"

Steve pinches at his eyes. "Sam..."

"Come on," he says, nodding inside. "Carols aren't your thing; I get that. Not gonna impress you with my incomparable prowess on the piano. That's fine."

"It's not about--"

"Your situation doesn't change whether you're here or elsewhere, Steve," Sam says. "So are you going or staying?"

Steve stares at him until Sam shrugs and walks away from him, back into the kitchen. "I get it! No problem!"

"I was impressed!" Steve says, stumbling begrudgingly after him. "I said I was impressed, I have no idea how you play the piano like that."

"So what's it gonna take to get you to stay? You play pinochle?"

"I don't play pinochle."

"What if it's for Nan? You play pinochle then?"

"Does it magically make me know the rules of pinochle? No, Sam."

"I'm just saying, of all the people in the room, you're the one most likely to know what the hell Nan's ever talking about when she's on about shit like that. You'd deprive an old woman her closest contemporary?"

Steve breaks into the dining room to raucous applause. He waves casually, all too used to this to find it remotely unusual anymore. "So while they're trying to set me up with you, _you're_ trying to set me up with Nan. I see what this is."

"Wouldn't say no," Nan mutters, to widespread laughter.

"Steve," Sarah says, approaching him again with that plate of cookies. "You sure you won't have one?"

Sam merely shrugs and moves to refill his drink. "Up to you, man. No one's gonna force you to do what you don't want to do."

Steve blinks at him a minute, then slowly picks up a piece of shortbread from Sarah's tray. "Thank you," he says, tinging pink when she pats him fondly on the cheek.

"You're among family here, Steve," she says as she turns away. "Even if you won't marry my brother."

" _Yet,_ " comes the chorus of at least four voices around them.

Sam shrugs wildly around, looking betrayed. "Would you all give it a _rest_?"

"No," say the voices again.

"What's wrong with my grandson, anyhow?" Nan asks him, looking up with remarkable tenacity for someone who got to 90 years old without skipping ahead. "He too handsome for you?"

"Hard to argue with that," Steve says, "but I guarantee you, ma'am, the problem is mine."

"You're a heterosexual," Nan accuses.

"No," Steve says, and as he sits down, he really does try to accept the warmth surrounding him from all sides; tries to live in the present, for all the past pulls at him. "The truth of it is, ma'am, that I'm just... tired. I'm tired. That's the only way I can put it."

  


  


  


### 1943

"Merry Christmas, Buck."

Steve handed him a book -- an art book, drawn of Bucky in moments when they _weren't_ at war; when they weren't fighting or shooting or hunting or planning. When they were present; when they were _alive_.

Bucky took it and looked up at him, openly perplexed, without saying a word. He sat down not far from Steve, but Steve didn't follow; stood some awkward distance away, hands shoved in his pockets, like his own unruly body wasn't welcome to the moment he was trying to produce.

Bucky's expression was unreadable as he leafed through the pages. Steve was just relieved he took his time in looking through it, yet Bucky brought yet something more: he turned each page with aching care, traced each image with the tips of his fingers, not hard enough to smudge the lines but with intention enough that Steve wondered if he was trying to find himself among the moments he's captured. In that sunset, maybe; at that card table, smiling slick, cigarette hanging from his lips.

"Steve," Bucky said, then said nothing more.

"I know you've been feeling run down. I just…"

What? What did he _just_? Did he hope to repay the debt? Did he hope to draw Bucky out of his stony silence, away from the way he only spoke when spoken to? Did he hope the colour of it, finally full with blues thanks to the serum, might bring him something like warmth in the bleak winter at the front?

"It's not always this," Steve said. "Sometimes it's… you know, something else. Sometimes it's okay, Bucky, I just want you to remember... You do know that, right? That life is different from… this? From war?"

Bucky looked up at him, _afraid_ , and for all Steve had hoped to see it sure as hell wasn't that.

"You always did your best at finding hope among the rubble, Rogers," Bucky said, and tilted his face down again as he turned to the next page.

"Do you like it?"

"Yeah," Bucky said, voice run right down. He points. "This one's from before the war."

"A couple of them are."

"Feels like a lifetime ago." He turned to another image and took just as much care with it as he had the first. When he got to the last page he turned to the front again and started over, like he was learning something new and wanted to remember it. "You still see things this way?"

"Yeah, Buck. Couldn't draw them if I didn't."

"That's amazing. Never give that up." He'd seemed to swallow against emotion as he looked sharply up. Steve could read his face, then: raw and worn down. "I don't have anything for you."

"I didn't expect you to."

"I don't--"

Steve raised his chin and waited, but Bucky only stared, concealing something back under that stony gaze.

"I don't deserve this," Bucky said at last, voice scooped dry as he gently closed the book.

"All those years you did so much for me?" Steve shrugged, wild, victim to the harmonies resonant between his ribs. "It's the least I can do."

"But I've been--"

"What?" Steve asked, trying for kind, when Bucky cut off again. "What could you have done to undo all that kindness?" He gestured at the book. "I see you in pain and I don't know the first thing to do to help you, but I can remind you there's another world out there. Do you remember it?"

"Get me out of this war," Bucky said, sudden and heartbreaking.

"If it kills me to do it," Steve said at once.

"No," Bucky bit back at him, harsh. "Not then."

Steve's breath cut out of him like he'd been punched. "Okay, Buck. Let's talk a little while, how about it?"

Bucky only gave a frustrated noise. He cut his face to the side, and Steve felt that familiar, impenetrable tension press at them, pull at them, break them apart.

"You make books for the other guys too?" Bucky asked, swallowing hard. His voice was different; the moment had changed.

"You know I didn't."

"They'll be jealous."

Steve frowned. "Will… they?"

"Can't keep showing me favouritism like this. You commander of this unit or not?" Bucky shrugged. "I oughtta report you."

Steve understood, then.

"Am I being clear?" Bucky asked him.

"Yeah," Steve said. "I hear you, Buck." Then -- because he was feeling petty; because he was angry with Bucky for shutting down this hard -- he turned away and went back to his maps. "Guess you're dismissed."

In the corner of Steve's eye, Bucky's jaw clenched. His fingers whitened over the spine of the book.

"Look," Steve sighed. "It's a gift, and I meant it for you. Take it if you want, or I'll burn it before we pick up camp. It's up to you."

Steve didn't look up again until Bucky long since strode from the tent, afraid to see which option he'd chosen; but the book wasn't there when he did, and Steve felt a relief as broad as the sky.

When he noticed Bucky put it under his pillow, though -- as though to take the world Steve had tried to give back to him into his dreams -- Steve couldn't say he felt relief anymore. 

Maybe it was something, though, to have made going to sleep a little easier to bear.

  


  


  


### 2016

"Buck."

Bucky's visible through the door to the kitchen, wincing as he tries to maneuver a knife across toast without a second hand to steady the plate. 

"Yeah?" he says, distracted. "What?"

"It's Tuesday."

Bucky clicks his tongue as the toast falls off the plate. "Yeah."

"The 27th."

"Sure. What are you getting at?"

"I think we -- missed Christmas."

Bucky looks up, blinking through confusion. "What?"

"Yeah." Steve scrolls through his phone, smile budding on his lips. "We definitely missed Christmas."

Bucky glances out the window, over the Wakandan jungle. "Huh." He looks back at Steve. "Should we have… I dunno, done something? Called someone?"

"I don't think so." He's already in the middle of texting Sam, who'd sent him a message three days earlier asking him what he had going on. _Not much,_ Steve had replied, like an idiot. _You?_ "Maybe gone to Mass. Not sure how many Catholics there are in Wakanda."

"Why would we go to Mass?"

Steve puts down his phone. "Because it's Christmas Eve."

"Tell me you don't still do that."

"Do you, uh… do you… not?"

" _No._ " Bucky gestures to himself. "Are you kidding?"

"You used to… insist on it. When I wanted to stop going."

"Before I was brought back from the dead, Steve. There's only so much treachery a house of God can hold at once. How many commandments do I need to break before God Himself throws me forcibly out the doors?" Bucky gestures wildly at nothing. "You got a neighbour I can covet?"

"Okay," Steve says, extending a placating hand. "Okay."

Bucky chews at the inside of his mouth and stares despondently at his toast.

"So you didn't do anything?" Steve asks, propping himself to his feet. "Last few years?"

"No," Bucky gravels, and picks up the butter knife again after a beat to steady himself. "Just another day to spend thinking I was crazy."

Steve nods and leans his shoulder in the doorway. "I'm sorry."

He shrugs. "Not your fault." Something flickers at the corner of his mouth. "Thought of you, I guess."

"Yeah?"

"Way you used to turn bright red after all that brandy."

Steve smiles. "Could never exactly metabolize that stuff. You just kept pouring me more."

"It was hilarious."

"You _thought_ it was hilarious."

"Once you started talking it just kept coming. Steve Rogers monologue hour."

"We had some of our best sex in those hours between dinner and Mass."

Bucky smiles full, now, down at the counter. "Forgot that. God, we were filthy." 

" _You_ were filthy. Muttering in the middle of Mass about whether I thought Jesus would know about your dick breath."

Bucky snorts laughter.

"Yeah, yuk it up. Your entertainment at my expense."

"Best gift I ever got, Rogers," he says, raising his head. "Seeing you happy for once in your life."

Steve's smile fades. Bucky's eyes wander to the floor.

"I'm glad you're here, Buck," Steve says, after a while.

"Yeah," Bucky gravels, then looks at him, direct. "Hey. We fuck on Christmas Eve this year?"

"I think so."

"Yeah? How was it?"

"Pretty good."

Bucky looks offended. " _Pretty good_?"

"You didn't seem to realize you were making this little sound in your throat every time I put my tongue--"

"Oh," he says, apparently relieved. "Well, yeah, but that was awesome."

Steve smiles. "Then I guess we had a pretty typical Christmas, Buck."

A pause. Bucky looks at him, filling with worry or something else.

"You really didn't know?" he asks, quiet.

"I really didn't know," Steve swears. "But I probably would have done it the same way if I had."

Bucky nods, slow and pensive. "Me too." He shrugs. "Don't know if I have any use for the season, since…"

When he trails off, Steve gives in to the pull he feels in his chest and walks over to him, wrapping both arms at Bucky's hips. Steve holds him against the nearest counter, smiling helplessly as Bucky throws an arm around his neck. 

"Hey," Steve says.

"Hey what, jackass?"

"Merry Christmas," he mutters, and kisses him deep until they're rutting and helpless, Bucky's toast lain forgotten.

  


  


  


### 1940

"Are they feeding you enough?" Winifred pinched at his arm.

"Ma," Bucky said, waving her off. "Let the interrogation drop, would you?"

"You're thinner. Doesn't he look thinner?"

"I'm not. I got more muscle than I used to, that's all."

"So they're working you too hard."

"Ma!"

"You used to do such physical work, James, it's not as though--"

"Maaa," Bucky groaned, and set himself facedown on his plate.

"Did you see about that deferral?"

Bucky raised his head and stared widely at Steve as though asking him for salvation, but Steve only smiled pleasantly, far too cheerful to interrupt a bit of it.

"They're not gonna give an A1 punk like me a deferral," Bucky said, when it became clear Steve wouldn't help.

Winifred hit him in the shoulder with the serving spoon. "You're saying you _didn't_ see into it."

"I saw into it," Bucky said. "But we aren't that desperate for labour in this country, lest we forget the fucking Depression."

"Language," Winifred scolded. 

"Let the Army talk go, now, would you? I get enough of it as it is."

"Well, we don't get a word of it." She gestured at Steve. "Do we get a word of it, Steve?"

"Not a dicky bird."

Bucky squinted at him, incredulous. "You been reading again, Rogers?"

"Now that you're not around to bother me."

"Fucking dangerous you ask me."

Winifred hit him with the spoon again. "James Buchanan, that language."

"It's Army talk, Ma. You wanna keep me home instead? I'll drop it all, I swear."

Winifred wasn't wrong; Bucky's accent was even different, as though made soft in the seven weeks since he left. If Steve hadn't known better, he'd have thought Bucky was putting it on a bit thick just to sound like he thought he was meant to.

"Well," Winifred said, flustered by the reminder. "It's nice to have you home. Isn't it nice to have him home, girls?"

"It's alright," Ellie said. "Your hair is too short."

"And you smell much worse of tobacco than you used to," said Rebecca.

"Did you even bring us anything?" said Sally.

Bucky threw his hands in the air. "Everyone's a critic! Doesn't count for anything I paid for all this, does it? You just want to complain. No need to think about how the sausage gets made so far as you get fed, is that it?"

Steve handed the potatoes over to Bucky, and Bucky met his eye; and all manner of joy felt to burst out of him, unexpected, to see the way Bucky looked at him. Seven weeks wasn't that long and yet it felt like forever; Steve felt that familiar blush at his cheeks, that palpitation at his heart, as though to see Bucky here was just a reminder he was alive.

Bucky took the bowl from him, still holding his gaze, drink or the warmth of the room leaving him as pink as Steve. Steve licked his lips and fought the stupid rush of gratitude in him, and only hoped they'd find time enough to slip away later on.

"Well I'm sure glad to see you," Steve said. It sounded a bit sincere, but Steve found he didn't much care.

If Bucky's taunting smile flickered -- if he closed his eyes in the face of it -- Steve hoped, he _assumed,_ that it was for the force of whatever passion lived in him that Steve so rarely saw.

"Thanks, Rogers," Bucky said, and a second later his eyes flashed away, traveling away in search of the cranberry jelly. "At least _somebody_ appreciates me."

"Yeah," Steve said, trying to recover. "It must be awful for you in Wisconsin. No one there to appreciate your good looks or your myriad talents. Must be so terrible to be naturally athletic and such a good shot, to be so undoubtedly popular with the _entire_ available population…"

"Maybe he'll bring a wife home from the war, then," Rebecca said, and the cacophony of enthusiasm that followed fortunately masked Steve's snickering as he ducked under the table.

"You're a laugh riot," Bucky told him once re-emerged. "You're hilarious. You know that?"

"You'll miss it when you're gone," Steve told him.

When Bucky's smile flickered again, this it was much more severe; Steve thought he saw terror, and regretted it at once. 

Steve didn't collect himself in time to find words enough to say before Bucky clenched his jaw into some smile that wasn't really a smile at all. "Guess you're right," he said, then nudged Rebecca beside him. "Hey. You gonna keep that roast all for yourself?"

In all the minutes and hours and years that followed, Steve wished with all he had in him that he'd said something else, _anything_ else, to keep the illusion alive that Bucky'd worked so hard to produce. Because that Christmas had been different, or Bucky had been; and Steve couldn't help but think that it'd been him who'd blown it all open.

  


  


  


### 2017

"So," Steve says, before his courage fails him. "What's everybody's plans for Christmas?"

Sam and Natasha seem to freeze in place. Bucky looks sidelong at him, only to return to the dough he's stubbornly trying to knead into bread a second later.

"Funny you should bring that up," Sam says, with a bit of an edge to it. From the way Natasha's eyes hit the ceiling, Steve guesses he's not the only one to have heard it.

"Oh?" Steve asks. "You not going to Nan's as usual?"

"I am," Sam says. He's still looking at Natasha; still sounding dry. Natasha, on the other hand, busies herself with the table dressings and doesn't look at any of them. "A bit of a change in plans. Natasha is also experiencing a bit of a change in her regular program, but she won't accept my offer to come to Nan's with me. Suffice to say it's been a point of discussion."

"Contention," she corrects.

"It's an invitation. An invitation is not an attack."

"And yet here you are, once again, making me feel like I'm a monster for declining."

"You not going to Clint's?" Steve asks, cocking an eyebrow at her.

"I am going to Clint's," she says, tone airy.

"You are not going to Clint's," Sam counters. "You keep _pretending_ you're going to Clint's, but I know you, Romanov, and you're not going to Clint's."

"I am going to Clint's."

"There is no room at Clint's."

"They will find room at Clint's."

"They won't, because you won't go, because Clint's making excuses about why you shouldn't be there, and the last thing you want to do is to go where you're not wanted."

Natasha purses her lips and sets her hands against the table. "Sam, can you just--"

" _I_ , meanwhile, am extending a _genuine_ and _heartfelt_ invitation for you to accompany me to my family's _open house_ \-- emphasis on the word _open_ \--"

"An open house is an open invitation," she says, too smoothly.

"You're not gonna shake down my family," Sam says, certain.

"You forget your nephew works for my ex. You think I don't have motive?"

Sam ignores this outright, instead pointing at Steve. "Steve's been to Nan's. Tell her how great Nan's is."

"It's certainly an experience," says Steve.

Sam blinks at him. "It's _an experience_? Just because you were in active mourning the whole time and thus unable to partake in the ample joys Nan offers to all--"

"I did warn you."

"It was a night to remember," Sam insists.

"That's true. I've never received quite so many marriage proposals on someone else's behalf before."

Sam waves a hand. "Ignore him. That won't happen to you."

"It might," Steve says to Natasha, sincere.

"Stop sabotaging this, would you? Did you have a good time or not?"

"Well… it was Christmas," Steve says, apologetic. "I don't much like Christmas, whether I'm at Nan's or not."

"Can't believe this slander," Sam mutters.

"I don't like Christmas either," Natasha declares, as though Steve's just won her the argument.

"Me neither," Bucky gravels.

"You're all a bunch of lost causes," Sam says. "You know that? None of you have the first goddamn clue about the power of Christmas. You should all come to Nan's. Serious invitation."

Steve looks up at Sam with a pinched smile. "Me and Bucky are actually gonna spend Christmas Day marathoning the classics and making six different kinds of pie. But thank you."

" _Six_?"

"Mince," Bucky says, still kneading his bread, "strawberry rhubarb, pumpkin -- apple, obviously -- chicken pot…"

"Hoping you and Nat could make us a list of what to watch to catch up," Steve says, smiling.

"--pecan, so Steve doesn't die of deprivation between trips to the city--"

"I don't watch Christmas movies," Natasha says, apparently just to deepen Sam's consternation.

"I wanted to do another one," Bucky says, looking to the ceiling. "Maybe a Shepard's pie. Not sure it counts in the same way."

"It counts," Sam says, rubbing his eyes.

"Seven, then." Bucky sounds pleased with the development.

"You want to come?" Steve asks, smile dawning wider as he looks between the three of them. "Both of you, everyone. Open invitation. I assumed you'd have plans, but…"

"I am busy, actually," Sam says.

Steve struggles to hide his disappointment. "Oh." 

"Open house is on day-of this year. Mom and Sarah both have to work late Christmas Eve, and Jim says he's got a thing, so rather than exclude them we're expanding to include everyone, all of 'em. Whole shebang." Sam leans forward, eyes widening pointedly. " _Including all of you._ "

"Still a no from me," Steve says, smiling.

Bucky looks up with subdued interest, rolling the dough all the while. "Big family, huh?"

"Big enough," Sam tells him. "Sister, brother, bunch of nieces and nephews. It's my Ma's siblings that make up the brunt of us -- five of 'em, plus kids, couple of grandkids, a great-grandparent or two."

"Sounds nice," Bucky says, quiet.

Sam looks surprised. "You're about the only one who thinks so."

Bucky watches his hands for a time, face impassive. "I'm from a big family, too," he says, after a while.

Sam blinks at him; takes in his tone, the way he's trying to distract himself. "So… _you're_ gonna come to Nan's?"

Bucky gives a thin smile. "Thanks, but no thanks. Can't imagine a cover story big enough."

"Don't need one. They've met Steve, they know the score."

"Sure," Bucky says. "I'll just explain to _your family_ that I, an internationally wanted assassin, stole your fiance."

"Well," Sam says, tone strangled, "we'd find a way."

Natasha walks over to put an affectionate hand on Sam's leg. "Give Nan's a break, Sam."

"Nan's is great," Sam objects. "That's all I'm trying to say. Everyone should come to Nan's."

Steve grins at the ceiling. "So regardless of the status of Nan's--"

"No one's going to Nan's," Natasha says, sing-songy.

"--what I'm getting from this is that you're all still free for Christmas Eve."

There's a peculiar pause; Sam and Natasha exchange another glance. "I mean… yeah," Sam says. "I guess so. We were kinda throwing around the idea of doing something just to pass the time, but Natasha's having trouble committing, so I guess I'm free as a bird."

"I'm not the type you bring home to meet the family," Natasha says, sighing her exasperation. "I'm also not someone you should be making on-purpose Christmas plans with at all, Sam, and I'm sorry if that offends you, but it's--"

"You want to go over this now?" Sam says. "There is nothing wrong with you, Natasha."

"Except that I can't commit, right?"

"Life you've had?" Sam leans against a nearby stool, arms crossed over his chest. "I can wait."

Natasha stares at him, shaking her head, and to his credit Sam doesn't even flinch.

"Well," Steve says, barrelling stubbornly ahead, "here is one option. What if, on Christmas Eve, you stopped worrying about plans and just came here instead?" He clears his throat, nerves balling abruptly together; Sam and Nat look at him, startled. "We were, ah -- talking about putting together a pretty big spread in general, not just pies; we've never really had the means or the time to eat anything extravagant before, and we've definitely never made it ourselves. So it'll be a bit of an experiment, but we don't really want to make a whole turkey just for two of us, they're so big these days, and... uh, well, we have the room, and the means, and the motivation, so if you don't… have anywhere else to go. On Christmas Eve. You could… come here." Steve clears his throat again. "If you want. You don't have to. We don't mind being just us, but it'd be… well, it'd be--"

"Steve," Bucky says quietly.

"Sorry," he whispers, and grips desperately at the cabinets as he waits for their replies.

The only sound in the moments that follow is of Bucky kneading bread -- methodical and calming, as steadying as the beat of his heart.

"I mean," Sam says, sounding amazed, "I'd love that, just speaking for myself."

"Yeah," Natasha says, and funnily enough she even sounds sincere. She makes eye contact with Sam. "I could live with that."

Steve lets out the breath he'd been holding. "Well... good. Invite whoever you want. Nan, even," he says, gesturing to Sam.

"I think she'll be busy preparing for the big day, but… yeah. Thanks. I'll pass the message along."

"You're in for movies and everything?" Bucky asks Natasha, eyebrows peaked in inquiry.

She gestures at him. "Frankly, I'm surprised _you're_ up for this."

Bucky picks up his bread and throws it down again; parts it, folds it, works some air in. "I don't know," he says eventually, voice dragging. "It's… not about…" He sighs heavily and shakes the hair out of his eyes. "Look, when my father died I wanted nothing to do with Christmas, but I had three sisters and they deserved something nice. And then Steve's mom died a few years later, and he wanted nothing to do with Christmas either, but I dragged him to my family's house because he deserved something nice. And now I still don't know if I want anything to do with Christmas, but I know I can cook pretty well and I like new challenges, so let me do something nice… for you." He shrugs. "If you want. It's tradition, I guess. Up to you whether you want to be part of it."

In the intervening pause that follows, the only sound is of Bucky still stubbornly kneading his bread to hell and back.

"How are you gonna keep the turkey moist?" Sam asks.

"Haven't decided yet," Bucky mumbles.

"Slather it in mayonnaise," Sam says. "Low maintenance with solid results."

Bucky nods. "I've heard that's good."

"Mayonnaise?" says Steve, grimacing.

"Trust me," says Sam.

"You made a lot of turkeys, Sam?" Natasha asks Sam. "You'd betray your family like that?"

"You people act like I'm a literal bird," Sam says. "It's an analogy. You all know what an analogy is, right?"

"Remember that time you met T'Challa and you asked him if he liked cats?" Steve says.

"He was dressed like a literal cat. He had claws. Surprised there was no tail. I'm a human man with combat-standard aerial support apparti. It's totally different."

"Right," Steve says, smiling in the face of Sam's mouthed curses.

"Don't forget to take the turkey out of the freezer five days before," Natasha tells Barnes, ignoring Sam entirely. "I was once under cover in Nebraska and I went to my mark's house to find his roommates trying to wrestle an unruly seventeen pound frozen turkey in the bathtub to defrost in time for the next day. It was chaos. You don't want to deal with that."

"We'll take the bird out of the freezer," Steve promises.

"You better. Barnes gets his hands on a bird he can't do anything with?" She points to Steve. "You're cleaning turkey off the cabinets for weeks."

"Say, Romanov," Bucky says, not bothering to conceal the bitterness in his tone. "You ever spent a holiday with someone outside of a mark?"

"Nope," she says, apparently just to annoy him. Steve can tell she's lying from the drag in her voice.

"So what movies you got so far?" Sam asks, apparently just to try to stop nagging Natasha.

" _Miracle on 34th St,_ " Steve says.

"Classic. Original or remake?"

Steve frowns. "There's a remake?"

"Remake's better," says Sam.

"Remake is not better," Bucky objects, looking at his sticky fingers with distaste. 

Steve frowns at him. "Thought you hadn't done anything for Christmas, last few years."

"I overworked this," Bucky says, prodding unhappily at the dough.

"Buck. How many Christmas movies have you seen, exactly?"

Bucky clenches his jaw and reaches for the yeast to start again. "I might've jacked someone's cable, like, one time."

Steve's heard that voice before. "One time, huh?"

"Yeah, you know... one six-month period of time."

Steve buries his face in his hands.

"The hell'd you want me to do?" Bucky says. "I was going crazy. I deserved a miracle, 34th St. or otherwise."

Sam looks at him, shaking his head. "Barnes -- are you sure you don't want to come to Nan's? Nan fixes Christmas."

"Enough with Nan!" Steve and Natasha wail at once; and Bucky snorts with laughter as bickering erupts between them anew.

Weeks later, when the four of them start jousting with the Christmas tree Bucky insisted on cutting down himself -- when Steve feels that familiar pink glow gathering on his cheeks again -- he works to record every second of this; to never forget the way they fall on their asses laughing when Bucky's favourite mixing bowl gets shattered, or the way Bucky passes him the potatoes with his foot wrapped around Steve's ankle, like all of this is theirs again. 

These moments stay their own. 

And Steve thinks he's finally come home for the holidays. 

  


  


**Author's Note:**

> It is intentionally very easy to read Steve/Natasha, Steve/Sam, and Sam/Natasha in this fic. If it so pleases you, please do read it as an ot4 fic, too.
> 
> Thank you for reading. Find me on [tumblr](http://newsbypostcard.tumblr.com/).


End file.
